From atop the mesa on which it sits, the University of San Diego’s Fowler Park and Cunningham Field provides a window to Mission Bay and, beyond that, the Pacific Ocean.

Nowhere in sight: the dust storm that accompanied Wednesday’s departure from Peoria.

Arizona behind them, opening night looming straight ahead, the Padres face remaining spring business: their final Cactus League games, more than 300 miles away from Loop 101. Friday and Saturday, they’ll host the Indians in intimately set exhibitions, a chance for those who’ve stayed west of the border to experience what they missed.

“We just thought outside the box,” said Padres president and CEO Mike Dee, “...what if we brought spring training to San Diego?”

That was the question Dee, along with club part-owner Tom Seidler, posed to USD Athletic Director Ky Snyder during a campus visit in mid-January.

In late March, the answer is plainly apparent. With the Toreros baseball team on the road in San Francisco this weekend, Fowler Park’s capacity has been expanded from the typical 1,700 seats to a roomier but still cozy 3,000. As of late Thursday afternoon, according to Snyder, both exhibitions were nearing a sellout.

While the weekend will serve as a proving ground of sorts for USD’s ability to host an NCAA regional, Snyder added: “Here’s a place where young people are going to train to play in the majors, and now these guys are going to play here. It’s pretty cool.”

Besides the obvious connection - Padres executive chairman Ron Fowler, who donated the majority of the $13.8 million spent on the venue that bears his name, also chairs USD’s board of trustees - the in-town big-league club had begun weighing its options ever since its selection for ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball opener.

An exhibition previously scheduled Thursday against the Mexico City Red Devils at Petco Park was canceled, giving the Padres an off-day before the regular season, as required by Major League Baseball’s collective bargaining agreement.

A pair of exhibitions with the Indians, also scheduled at Petco Park - this before Dee’s return to San Diego last summer - would go on, but elsewhere. The club, Dee said, needed the additional time to ready its downtown venue for Sunday’s national spotlight.

The solution: Fowler Park, a second-year facility with sunken dugouts and a 6,500-square-foot clubhouse.

“We hope it is a new and different way for fans to see the Padres,” Dee said. “We love Petco Park and that’s our home, but when you have a chance to do something like this we think it’s pretty cool.

“We’ve got to be everywhere in the community, not just USD. We’ve got to be in North County, East County, South Bay. It’s an all-out blitz to reconnect in some cases and strengthen connections in many more cases. ... We want to let our fans know we want to be a part of each and every community in San Diego.”

Dee said the club’s agreement with the city of San Diego allows the Padres to play home exhibitions away from Petco Park - “We’re still playing in the city of San Diego. I think it’s a win for everybody” - while leaving open the possibility of future exhibitions in other ballparks in the county.

For this year, Fowler Park’s the spot, a quick jaunt up Interstate 5 from Petco. The collegiate venue, too, will be the site of a few major league announcements, as Padres manager Bud Black has yet to set his 25-man roster.

Robbie Erlin is expected to be declared the team’s fifth starter, Donn Roach the final reliever. Meantime, the Padres must decide whether to open the season with three catchers and who, among Tommy Medica, Kyle Blanks and Xavier Nady, makes the team.

In other words, these final games of spring training do count, one way or another.

“I think in the grand scheme of things it’s a positive thing for the community, positive thing for the Padres,” third baseman Chase Headley said. “Hopefully some people that wouldn’t come to Petco would come there.”